Mr. Kibby is the President of the McGraw Hill Higher Education group yet you reference the growth potential of this adaptive E-book for the K-12 segment. K-12 is entirely dependent on StateTax revenues for funds to purchase text books, (of which there are none) and YTD expereince of any E-book in Higher Education has been a failure. To beleive that any kind of E substitute will completely replace what is currently in either market in 36 months given the time required to create and execute all of the different elements of a program and the scheduled renewal rate is more then folly, it is fantasy. When will journalist begin to provide an educated and documented path of substitution? This is not it.

3:56 pm January 7, 2013

BRL... wrote:

Will the books "adapt" if the student gives a correct answer, but the book is wrong?

That may not be an issue in electrical engineering, but it is a big issue in history, economics, and science.

9:59 pm January 7, 2013

LizaB wrote:

Of course the real world does not adapt information presentation to lthe individual. So perhaps it is better to teach study skills rather than spoon feed content to suit the preference of each student.

8:11 am January 8, 2013

zipday wrote:

New kind of e-textbook that asks students questions throughoutthebook? You've got to be kidding! Such features and others have been in textbooks since the 90's and late 80's. One psych book published by HarperCollinsCollegePublishers called this "Before You Go On" Thus far, all e-textbooks have done is to take tradtional pedagogical features which have been in texs for years and import them into a new digital platform. No NEW features have been implemented . IS there anything new under the sun

2:46 pm January 8, 2013

Susan Arscott wrote:

This sounds exciting. As a former teacher, I welcomed anything that would help my students succeed and this, if done correctly has the capability of doing just that. Of course, let's hope the costs of books will decrease substantially.

3:12 pm January 8, 2013

Still Optimistic wrote:

It may not be a panacea, but I think McGraw-Hill deserves some credit for taking a step toward adaptive, personalized learning. And it’s more than just “questions throughout the book.” Though I haven’t seen it, I assume the intent of the questions is to identify gaps in an individual student’s knowledge and/or misconceptions a student may have as a basis for redirecting the students learning path to address the gaps and/or misconceptions. If not addressed as they appear, such gaps and misconceptions accumulate and may prevent learning. Adaptive learning also identifies material a student has already mastered and allows him or her to move ahead.
My concern, as I said in my guest blog “The Shifting Paradigm” on edtechdigest.com (November 23, 2012), is that reading a textbook, especially for subjects where students are true novices, is not necessarily learning from it. Reading is often a passive exercise. Students are not passive recipients of new knowledge; they are active sense makers of new information, and they must engage in active cognitive processing of new content during learning.
Static e-textbooks certainly, but even enhanced multi-media e-textbooks may not provide the necessary engagement experiences students need for learning. Learning requires active mental manipulation, comprehension checks, and alternative explanations when understanding has not occurred. Instruction must also provide abundant guided and independent practice to anchor concepts in long term memory and to develop procedural fluency. And it should be adaptive and personalized.
So I give McGraw-Hill points for taking this step, even though it may not be the ultimate solution. We are in a transition from traditional textbooks, to varieties of e-textbooks, and to the “dynamic, adaptive, personalized learning environments” mentioned in the announcement, along with blended learning initiatives. It is doubtless optimistic to suggest the transition will take place in three years, but it will occur, and the big three publishers, while they are still “big” and while there are still three of them, are all scrambling to develop effective transitional strategies and tactics.

8:52 pm January 8, 2013

bogopogo wrote:

As an educator - my main concern with this is how do make sure that the "right answer" and "important information" covered in the textbook lines up with the content standards that we have as teachers.

As a teacher - I am responsible for making sure the information I present to my students is in alignment with the content standards for my course. The book is a tool to help me cover the content standards - the book isn't the conent standard. In fact there are plenty of things in my current textbook that are outside the scope of my classes.

I am all for this if districts/states can tailor the areas that the smartbook is checking for mastery - line up with our content standards.

11:27 am January 9, 2013

Magenta13 wrote:

Having dealt with the implementation of ebooks on our campus I can tell you a lot of textbook companies have made a lot of promises. They make teachers think all ebooks are completely interactive and vary so much from the written book. In fact, that really hasn't happened on a realistic basis. Tired of Chicken Little, you forget there are also privated K-12 schools and we seem to be the main focus of the etextbook push. I think they realised only 14% of the college kids who were given the option chose to go the ebook route. I think bogopogo brought up the most relavent question. How are they all supposed to cover the same material if it isn't the teacher decided which material is most relavent?

11:46 pm November 19, 2013

Cole wrote:

Interesting, but hardly a novel idea. There are other web-based programs that have been doing this for a few years. Khan Academy has been doing a rudimentary version of this with regards to mathematics for some time now- not trying to sell anything here, just providing an example. I haven't used textbooks to teach science concepts in a long time, as many ideas are outdated only a few years after print or they provide examples that aren't geographically/socially/politically/etc. relevant to everyone.

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